@FranckDernoncourt But “rule violations” is the only part some random user needs to know. What exact rule they violated is not knowledge they need to have

In our cases, we presumably don’t feel we did something terrible, that we are ashamed of other users knowing about (since we both shared why we were suspended). But what if you had gotten angry and written something that, let’s say you don’t exactly want every user to know as your suspension reason “wrote rude comments X Y and Z on post A, and trolled users B and C for months on end”

@StarshipRemembersShadow I have 0 shame and if anyone sees I am/was suspended, I'd like them to be able to see the details so that they can judge by themselves

About the current FR, that'd help mods see whether someone keep breaking the same rule

Actually I see you wrote an answer on what caused my suspension: travel.meta.stackexchange.com/a/8845/1810 so I did what the meta question asked (bumped 4 questions due to edits), wrote a meta question to clarify the edit policy, wrote two comments asking Rory to clarify their answer and I got suspended. Why would you think I'd be ashamed for doing that? I'

On the contrary, I'd prefer users who see my suspension reason ("rule violation") to be able to see the actual reason or of my suspension (4 questions that got bumped due to edits, one meta question and 2 polite clarification comments)

I just take this suspension as an example.

@FranckDernoncourt I don’t. I actually said you clearly weren’t. This was a hypothetical

@FranckDernoncourt The rules are not written just for you. They are written for everyone. There are good reasons to presume that a significant number (if not nearly all) users would prefer not to have their dirty laundry aired out in public. The policy of not discussing suspensions is mean to protect the privacy interests of the majority of users who desire that level of privacy.

Anyone who doesn't care for that privacy right is free to post their correspondence with moderators.

But I don't see how the public's right to know the specifics of any particular suspension outweigh the privacy rights of the users who are being suspended, and I fail to see the public good created by making suspensions public.

With respect to what moderators can see, there are certainly places around the edges where the system could be improved, but I very much I want to moderate the sites I moderate based on what happens on those sites, until and unless the behaviour of a user starts to spill over from or onto the rest of the network. And when/if that happens, we already have tools which allow us to get a larger picture of what is going on.

(Though those are mostly social tools, rather than technical tools.)

@XanderHenderson if someone misuses SE, I don't see why they should be protected, PII aside.

@FranckDernoncourt You are free to feel that way, but I think that you are going to find yourself very much in the minority. The notion is that, after one has been suspended and served their "sentence", they have repaid their "debt" to the site, and should be permitted to continue without prejudice. The model here is closer to a "restorative justice" model than a "retributive justice" model, which seems to be what you are suggesting.

@XanderHenderson In my case, the prejudice is higher with a vague reason than with the precise reason. What sounds worse to you: "rule violation", or "made minor edits that caused 4 questions to be bumped within 2 hours then asked to clarify the edit policy on the meta site + wrote 2 (polite) comments to clarify an answer"? I don't know about other users' suspension cases (since I can't access it), but don't care since indeed I prefer transparency.

@FranckDernoncourt Like I said, you are more than welcome to air your own dirty laundry. Others are permitted to keep it to themselves. It is not (nor should it be) up to the moderators or the company to publish these things.

That being said, I highly doubt that you are giving a complete, unbiased, and objective description of whatever occurred.

@XanderHenderson Yes, could be on-demand basis so that users could choose, if SE wants to protect the bad apples: Allow regular users to vote to lift a user's suspension

@XanderHenderson "That being said, I highly doubt that you are giving a complete, unbiased, and objective description of whatever occurred." see that's why I prefer transparency. No transparency causes prejudice to me. This is exactly what happened. You're a mod, you can ask in the mod chat, I give permissions to anyone to share privately or publicly all details for all my suspensions on any SE site.

Again, I don't think that we are ever going to agree. Your version of "transparency" sounds very much like a rather profound invasion of privacy. What I will say is (1) I am thankful that both the majority of the users of the site and the actual company seem to agree with me, and (2) if this changed, I would probably delete my account.

@XanderHenderson you call it invasion of privacy, I call it defamation with misleading suspension reason.

@FranckDernoncourt You, yourself, are free to publish your suspension message. Moderators will not, and should not.

@XanderHenderson I can't do it while suspended on the site where I am suspended